Saturday, May 21, 2011

Thoughts on Canada's Team, the Winnipeg Jets

The 'Eh' Factor turned a year old this week, the same day I took a flight to Toronto to cover the Memorial Cup. I'll be linking to some prospect profiles throughout.

I wanted to get a quick comment in about Canada's Team. I recall cheering for Montreal, Calgary and Edmonton during their Cup runs but against Ottawa. When a team is the underdog, regardless of geographic location, they're the team to cheer for. It just so happened we've had a few Canadian Cinderella stories recently.

Truly, Canada's team is now the Winnipeg Jets. I trust the Globe and Mail, along with Stephen Brunt, have done their homework and the framework for a deal to sell the Atlanta Thrashers to Winnipeg is in place. We can endlessly speculate on who's feeding who information or why TSN, who are both part-owned by Bell Globemedia, are reporting different things. My best guess is that David Thomson, who owns 85% of the Globe, wants to keep the scoop confined to his own outlet. Synergy, people.

While a few outlets are spouting off the NHL's failure in Southern Markets (because Phoenix and Atlanta having financial difficulty completely offsets the league's success in establishing large and passionate fan bases in Nashville, Raleigh, Tampa Bay and San Jose), Behind The Net does the necessary legwork, as usual, to explain why the expansion strategy looked better 10 years ago than it does today. If nostalgic looks at the Jets is your thing, 1967ers has the goods, a very detailed look.

The best name for a team comes courtesy of Ace at Butterflies and Black Aces, who suggested the Winnipeg Phoenix, a moniker that works on a number of levels. I'd even forgive the name for being one without an 'S' at the end, names I usually abhor. Another good one was Winnipeg Aurora, which is way better than Dave Hodge's idea to call them the Winnipeg Gold.